


The Jesus Lizard

by Wirrrn



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Canonical Verbal Abuse from Xander's Parents, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 03:35:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21570160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wirrrn/pseuds/Wirrrn
Summary: Buffy Boy is Back from Beyond
Relationships: Xander/Others
Kudos: 4





	The Jesus Lizard

THE JESUS LIZARD

by  
Wirrrn

"I still hear from her occasionally, screaming.  
I think the dead should shut up,  
unless they have something to say."  
-EXORCIST III (1990)

"It ate him. He wanted to measure the bite radius...  
(hysterical) Hahahahaha! I guess he got his chance!"  
-CREEPSHOW: THE CRATE

"Snake in the woodpile, snake in the woodpile, snake  
in the woodpile, snake in the woodpile..."  
-Drusilla, ANGEL

* * * *

Your eyes snap open.

You stare upward at an uninterrupted view of the vast black potter's wheel of the night sky, flecked with sand grain stars and ever spinning far above, remote from you.

You stretch. Your back and knees make that flesh- muffled crack of popping nitrogen bubbles between the joints that reminds you once-unimaginable Thirty is appearing on the horizon; a massive unavoidable iceberg where once there was just the flat azure sea of adolescence. 

Sitting up and your mouth floods with the taste and smell of warm metal 

-flash on a childhood image- sandy beach in the sun, pudgy little toddler body wielding bucket and spade, drinking tepid coke from sticky-fingered can, the hot aluminum making your lips plush...

You spit and the taste is gone.

Standing now and you wobble for a moment, a marionette at the mercy of a drunken puppeteer. String-puller gravity sobers, and you regain equilibrium, reaching out to steady yourself on a nearby rock.

Beneath your touch, the rock is flat, is smooth. 

Is carved. 

Lettering has been chiseled into its surface by hands that are not these hands of yours, now white-knuckle- clutching the rock 

(the stone)

that marks the grave you stand on.

A graveyard, then.

You do not question why you would regain consciousness in a graveyard, in Sunnydale, at night.

You do not look down to see if the grave you are standing on yawns open, or is still shut tight and grim set as the mouth of the Angel of Death.

Certainly you do not raise now trembling fingers to your throat to feel for twin puncture wounds. Instead, you thrust the epileptic spiders deep in your pockets.

You walk for a while, coming to a large ossuary area- white marble walls set with numerous berths in which skeletons lie, beyond au naturelle. You look about you, eyes scanning the darkness for corpses not content to lie down in the bunks provided for them.

It must be a busy night. You see four.

In under five minutes. 

A large werewolf sits cross legged in a crypt pinned to the earth with a sleeper hold by Kudzu vines. The werewolf's muzzle is thrown back and it pants in hoarse ecstasy to the night sky as it jerks itself off. Blunt-clawed fingers moving over tapered, waxy pink shaft, jutting from hairy genital pouch like a long, wet crayon. The wolf's eyes never leave the full moon as it comes in a flood; thick, ropey jism the colour and consistency of dijon mustard spraying the wall of the crypt.

Two fledgling vampires are helping each other out of split-back tuxedo straitjackets, plucking free methodical mortician stitches from eyes and mouths. One opens the stitches in its throat, only to have its larynx fall from the wound onto the clotted earth, triggering a clumsy fumble in the undergrowth reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy by way of Herschel Gordon Lewis.

A leather-coated ancient with bleached hair and the face of a bat perches on the shoulders of a life sized statue of Jesus, watching the two neophytes with cold amusement before stubbing out its cigarette in the marble Messiah's side-wound and turning its face to yours, at the same time the wolf and the two fledges also notice you.

None of them make a challenge. You feel their gaze crawl up your body, meet your eyes, and then slide away as though the bones of your skull are coated with Teflon.

You turn and walk briskly from the ossuary, your fingers exploring your throat, entirely outside of your own volition.

You almost weep with relief when you find it unmarked.

-You do weep when one hand strays to scratch the back of your head... and disappears into your skull. You pull it back, wipe it on your chest. You don't look down.

You don't need to. The fingers smell like an abbatoir.

You remember. 

Falling.

You had fallen.

It had seemed like you plummeted forever, that horrible, hideous, awesome thing arcing and throbbing above you. 

Your mind- you are hyper aware of the cold night wind tickling its grey folds- obligingly replays for you the sound you made when you hit; It triggers a long ago science class, Percy West dropping a geode to the tiled chem lab floor 

with 

an

obscenely 

organic 

crunch.

("KwwwwwssschhhhkrrcccckkkKKK!")

You run your tongue over your gums, surprised to find that your teeth are small and square, as always. You concentrate on moving your facial muscles, but insteadof calling up a sharp boned, yellow-eyed, bat-mask, you simply trigger a tic in your lower left eyelid that drives you to distraction with its not-quite painfor a few minutes before dissipating.

Nor is there the constant clamour of a haranguing demon screaming at your inner ear, that you have been told those who are turned must bear.

You recall once that, someone... the name and face are blurry...

//Angles? Why are you thinking of angles? Perhaps the person who told you was in your maths class?//

said it was like having a radio grafted into the wet, protesting meat of your skull and permanently tuned to the crudest, loudest, most right-wing shock jock imaginable. Eternity with Gehenna's answer to Rush Limbaugh setting up a studio in your semilunar cerebral lobe.

No fangs, no Gameface, no demon. Could it be you survived your injuries? That perhaps you were left comatose, only to wake in your coffin bedraggled and befuddled some unknown time later?

The raw cleft in back of your head mocks you.

You don't know what think, what to do. Your rational mind is skewered like a frog to a dissection board with the long chrome pins of indecision.

//Find Xander//

Even as your consciousness tries to tear itself free of the moral mist you blunder through, you find yourself instinctively walking towards 

//Xander's house//

town. Your mind may be confused, but your body innately knows what it needs to find its bearings again.

Xander Harris is the True North of your muscle memory.

You reach the outskirts of the graveyard. You are at the top of the hill that overlooks Sunnydale. The lover's park n'paw make-out spot that was once used as a meat market by both Sunnydale teens and a werewolf alike- albeit for different reasons- looms large on your right. That means that help

//Xander//

is fifteen minutes walk away, past the Bronze, the Seven-Eleven, and three more cemeteries.

Ahh, Sunnydale.

You reach the gates of the graveyard, reach out to open them; the hem of your expensive over-shirt wrapped around your hand, making you look like a designer mummy on a nightmare catwalk, to try and reduce to a minimum the banshee wail of the rusty gate hinges 

-with all the Supernaturals around, you may as well just ring a dinner bell- 

when something in your peripheral vision makes you turn.

A grave.

Walking up to it now.

The stone is simple, even plain. Several withered bouquets

(and one jet black bloom that looks exotic and almost seems to be feeding off of, wilting, the others)

Neatly mown grass. 

And this:

BUFFY SUMMERS  
1971- 2001  
BELOVED SISTER. DEVOTED FRIEND.  
SHE SAVED THE WORLD.  
A LOT

You see that the grave has been desecrated, written over repeatedly in magic marker, chalk and a rust-coloured fluid you don't want to think about. 

The original text is still legible, up close, but from the middle distance it now reads:

BUFFY SUMMERS  
ABOUT DAMN TIME  
MURDERESS. WHORE OF THE SOULED  
SHE SAVED THE WORLD  
...SO WHAT?

Several large lumps adorn the grass, between and on top of all the flowers save the large black one. Bending closer, you see that it is excrement. You are about to add "Human" but then see that the fecal matter is unnaturally dark- jet black and greasy, reeking of meat. The Coprolite of the Carnivore. The Voidings of the Vampire. One of the stools has a class ring embedded in it, along with most of the second knuckle of the finger that wore it.

There are wakes that happen only at night, when They Wake.

//Buffy. Buffy... Summers...//

The name... means something... to you. It is known to you but resists being categorized,like a familiar flavour in a dish you have never before eaten.

//She was... is... Chosen. But what for?//

No, you can't remember. You feel the name floating around the back of your throat, waiting to be voiced, for the connection to be made.

Needing to think, you lean back against another grave. A small decal on the 

(plastic)

wreath crowning the stone says it was paid for by the staff of 'Sunnydale Memorial Hospital Accidents and Emergency Unit'. 

The Headstone itself says nothing but

BEN

But whereas the mysterious Ms Summers' stone is plain, this one is just PLAIN (read "cheap"), a fact more than verified when the headstone crumbles beneath your weight as you lean on it, sending your startled self to the ground amidst a flurry of plywood and plaster of Paris, which goes beyond cheap and enters Miserly territory in your opin-

-You fall onto the moribund grass over the grave, your front teeth jarred painfully back in your gums by the impact, your mouth full of cloying, salt-tasting earth

//"-FuckingbitchGoddessYouliedsaidyoudhelpmebringmeback"..."ShutyourmouthBennydearIvegotmyownproblems-"//

(What the *Fuck* was that?!)

You lift your face from the ground and the voices- separate and raging at each other, but somehow the same- shut off as though you'd flipped a switch.

You walk briskly away from Buffy and Ben, and whoever else is buried here

-you catch a fleeting glimpse of the next headstone; the name, 

("Ann", "Amy", "Ahn", or something)

once again trips a few vague mental switches, 

//"....You've never seen a demon..."//

-but you're too razzled to give it any consideration)

and then the graveyard with its disquietly... disquiet residents is far behind you, well that one anyway, as there's another one looming up ahead on your right.

Ahh, Sunnydale.

* * * *

In the heart of town now, the cold, unbeating heart of town, complete with stake piercing it- the large statue here in this fore court, erected as a tribute to the victims of the Graduation Day Massacre. Dapper in his gleaming platinum, Snyder beams down at you from the pedestal, arms thrown in a hug around the beaming high school honour student types of either gender at his side.

//Shhyeah, right// 

You idly wonder if Pseudo-Snyder is uncharacteristically turning his mouth upwards because he's about to turn his metallic armed student-embrace into the knife-wielding one more befitting a T-1000, or because the sculptor, who was clearly working from a photograph, has given him the 6 foot plus statue stature he was denied in life.

The nearest streetlight casts a moth-battered cone of light over the memorial. The metal faces of the principal-adoring students gleam, their eyes blank and reflecting the light. You think of the alien changelings from Village of the Damned.

Shuddering, you turn from the wrong-on-so-many- levels-travesty and examine the quietly dozing streets, which you know from experience could awake with a coughing roar at a moment's notice. There are several stores here 

(a Yoghurt "Shoppe", an antique store with a Green Lion over the entrance, a Christian Bookstore/reading room which has had several bricks thrown through its window, the ridiculously saccharine painting of Pope John Paul II pointing to his exposed Sacred Heart dominating the display having been vandalised- a magazine photo of Robert DeNiro's Louis Cypher face cut out and glued over the piously senile features, a large porn-magazine still of a gigantic erect penis -looks like Colby Keller's- poking obscenely from the silver-white robe and trailing right down to the pontiff's incongruous but genuine reeboks)

you don't remember being standing before, which lends unpleasant weight to why you woke where you did. You shake your head, dispelling the thought. 

Xander will help you. He'll

//make everything alright//

Explain.

You remember sitting next to Xander during biology. (Post-Miss French and after he'd dated Blayne for about two weeks but it didn't work out and you'd been the only one he'd told). 

The new teacher, Ms Munro - a pleasant young black woman with prematurely white hair and double-take causing blue eyes that seemed to contain a whole Spring day- had a passion for rainforest life, especially reptiles. 

(After the Miss French Incident, you knew you weren't the only one expecting Ms Munro to one day quit lecturing about the fascination Chuckwalla lizards have for lightning, and flick a forked tongue out from between suddenly scaly lips as she crushed the nearest student in her coils)

and you remember her lecture on the reptiles of South and Central America, with a slide of the Jesus Lizard projected on the wall to the right of the white-board, the creature staring out at the class from between the periodic table and a map of California 

You'd listened with half an ear whilst examining oblivious Xander's beautiful, always smiling face in repose as he'd leaned that wonderful chin on his crossed forearms, and you'd had to fight the impulse to reach out and bury your fingers in that glorious mahogany hair....

You hadn't done it, of course. Not then, not the handful of other times you'd been alone with him, aching to touch. You regret that now. You should have told him, but no- you were too busy being... well, let's not beat around the bush... you were being a capital B Bitch.

You hope it's not too late to change that.

When threatened, The Jesus Lizard has a unique escape mechanism- It jumps up on its hind legs and runs bipedally *over* the nearest lake or river- literally running on water, huge, membranous foot pads allowing it to sprint over the liquid at speed without breaking the surface tension.

Due to its baleful eyes and array of horns and frills, the meek little lizard, you recall, is also known as the Basilisk, that fearsome and legendary beast that could kill with a deadly, calcifying glance.

You continue on through the sleeping town, wondering whether the sight of you on his doorstep will seem to Xander as miraculous as walking over ocean waves, or will turn him to stone.

* * * *

The front doorknob to the Harris house rips free of its jamb and hangs in your hands.

You feel despair tug on your vocal chords, hoping to be voiced. Clearly this is a sign of supernatural strength. Should you stake yourself? You don't think you have the strength... Perhaps you'll wait for Sunri-

"-Goddamit! Not again! Fuck that little f**got *and* his toolbox!"

A surly, slurring voice from the depths of the darkened house- it reminds you of a bear being woken prematurely from its Winter long hibernation.

"Sorry bout that..." the voice says, still disembodied by the lack of light, but getting nearer. "Seein' as how Alex knows his way around a hardware store now, we got him to fix our front door fer us..."

A figure is visible now, coming down the hallway. Huge and hulking, walking unsteadily, as though bipedalism is the latest new fad. Perhaps your original bear diagnosis wasn't that far off mark. You realize you're still palming the brass viscera of the door, but decide to hold onto it.

"...Wouldn't do it for free~ not even for his own fuckin' parents! We told him where he could fuckin' go, n' he came back in the middle of the night an' took away all the fittin's he'd put in! Goddamn door hasn't worked right since... Fuckin' little f**got..."

(*Xander* killed the door, not you. Your body breathes a sigh of relief- then another one after you realize your body is *breathing*)

From the slur, the rancour and deep low pitch of the voice, you expected this rather-less-than-welcome-wagon to consist of Xander's father. You are therefore surprised when the hall light clicks on

(a large, fluorescent blue lamp, rusted with age and neglect, moths piled in the base of the lightbulb for a powdery, brittle-legged inch)

and brings you face to face with Mrs Beverly Harris, instead.

You haven't seen Xander's mother in years, and are shocked by the change in her. You've seen revenants and graveyard ghouls that looked more passably human. No more than forty two or three, she looks twice that, as though her constant bitterness had turned on her, and she'd been poisoned by her own venom.

You wish you could feel sorry for her. But you know that this pathetic creature and her husband saved more than enough of their vitriol to use on their son. 

Pallid, watery eyes like a moribund malamute's peer myopically from mummified apple face.

"Yeahwhaddtawantkidyasellinsumpin?"

That wet-gaze travels back and forth across your face. You feel it, cold and sticky, on your brow and cheeks and wonder if her eyes are leaving silvery tracks on your skin, like a slug.

The cold feeling ceases as her eyes narrow.

"I know you."

The voice sharpens and sobers. You think of the Hubble telescope, the blind mirror suddenly re-calibrating.

"You're *that* one! The one who soured Alex against us!"

You open your mouth to respond, something about *whiskey sours* perhaps, but her refrigerator-bulk moves fast, eyes and hands flash.

Your back spasms painfully, your elbows numb, as you strike the sharp gravel of the driveway.

Mrs Harris glares at you from the porch, the light behind her throwing her into silhouette, a grotesque monster from a shadow puppet play, washing up gloves still on her hands, extending her fingers into the rubbery claws of a domestic demon.

"*You're* the reason he changed on us, you little fucker! My Alex was a good boy- kept to himself, did what he was told- Knew his place! Then you shake that skanky, ice-queen ass of yours at him, and quick as you please he's running around doing God-Knows what with you and your fucking dirty little crowd. Alex never talked back to me, not since we got all that  
smarthmouth out of him when he was a little brat- but now, whenever I call him up to ask him back home, he cusses me out! He's just a lily-livered little pansy whore!"

Thick, salty tears are damming the lines of her hard face. You almost feel sorry for her.

But then, crocodiles weep over their victims, too.

"David went there, y'know" she continues. "Over to that over-priced shithole Alex shares with his... his..." -She spits out a word that you can't catch, as though it were a poisonous insect that had flown in her mouth- "...No fuckin' preamble, just fuckin' grab him, bring him back here with us where he belongs. Alex pushed him right out the door! Pushed his own father!"

//Good on you, Xan. I'm proud of you//

A look of stupid, animal cunning takes root and blooms on her face. She half-turns back towards the hallway behind her.

"David! *Daaavid*! Get out here! One of Alex' cronies is out here, lookin' for him!"

A volley of profanities echoes from the maw of the house, ringing out from somewhere back in the peeling-paint walls of its gullet. The profanities move closer, and Beverly Harris turns to you with a look of smug triumph.

You've never met David Harris, nor questioned Xan about him. Certainly Xander never volunteered any information, being extremely leery about discussing his home life. You wonder what the ramshackle house is going to vomit out at you.

When, somewhere near the front door, you hear a shotgun being broken open and chambered, you have your answer.

Ready to run, when another shadow falls on you- this one from behind.

Turning, and the bat-faced Master Vampire from the cemetery is here, now, practically on top of you. The bat-like wrinkles are gone, though, leaving behind the surprisingly handsome human mask. 

The leather jacket is similarly missing, replaced by a black fishnet-mesh wifebeater so tight that the creature's -stunning- alabaster pectorals and abs are criss-crossed with grid marks where the fishnet intersects, a living chain-link fence of indented scales.

Not having to breathe does wonders for the figure.

You fall into an instinctive fighting stance -though where the instinct, or come to think of it, the stance- come from is anybody's guess.

The Master vampire though, merely chuckles politely, as though he finds your actions ludicrous, but admires the mettle behind them all the same.

"No worries, luv. I'm not here fer you." It raises palms upwards and outwards to show harmlessness, but you reserve your judgment. "Nah, I've come ta do summat I shoulda done donkey's years ago. Ordinarily, I can't hurt yer sort anymore. Long story..."

It smiles, almost wistful, then continues.

"...But these two tossers don't count as human in my book. Never 'ave."

The vampire moves away from you with the liquid,hypnotic grace of its species, heading for the house. Mrs Harris looks up at it, pales, and flees back into the building, extending her lifespan by perhaps another fifty seconds.

You watch as it crosses the threshold with no hesitation at all.

("Thanks again for the unconditional welcome wagon, Xan" it mutters, quietly)

and turns back to you, just once. The face has returned to the chiropteroid, but still manages to form a genuine grin.

"You'll be wantin' ta head to the residential zone, West of the old High School. He's in a big, nasty-arsed, salmon coloured building. Godawful eyesore- can't miss it. Flat...er, bugger... *apartment* 42. Give the Manly-Man me love, eh?" 

It pauses, thinking. "And the other two as well, I guess."

Before you can ask its name, what it means, it has disappeared into the house. Its voice floats out to you one more time, then the air is still, nothing further coming from the building

(though a few minutes after you leave, there is a single gunshot, two short but enthusiastic screams, and the sound of... chewing)

"...Nice ta have ya back, Pet..."

* * * *

The vampire was right. The apartment building is truly hideous.

The large salmon-coloured oblong squats in the middle of the forecourt, a big, ugly lego block just waiting to be recalled by the company. The buildings around it -small, neat, sensible little things- 

(apart from the smoky, cratered ruin of the old high school. Tendrils of its charred, gritty rubble extend for miles into the surrounding suburbs, in parks, the cracks of sidewalks, the rear of alleyways- as though the old school is surreptitiously taking root, growing again...) 

-seem too close to the road, perhaps trying to hitch a lift far away from the gigantic, ultra-modern eyesore the colour of a horny, spawny fish.

Despite the building's dubious aesthetic merit, there is a warm smile clinging to your face as you walk through its front door, a smile that refuses to give up its comfortable seat on your lips.

A very special tenant lives here. For him, you would brave a whole city of pastel-painted eyesores, a tree house two hundred feet up a strangler fig in the Congo, 1423 Elm street, Cabin 1 of the Bates Motel.

Xander lives here.

You take the stairs two, sometimes three at a time, waves of emotion for your chocolate-eyed friend buoying you aloft and up the first two floors without effort.

-Emotion can only bear you along so far, though. The legs do the lion's share of the work, and human legs are much less whimsically romantic than the human heart.

You stop on the third floor landing, bending double, and grab your knees with clenched hands, your breath with gasping goldfish huffs.

When your lungs no longer feel like a pair of medicine balls baking in a kiln, you jog the rest of the way down the hall to Apartment 42-

"Xan-"

//Der?//

-the door of which is ajar.

You walk quickly but quietly towards the apartment. As you near the partly open door, you see a light, soft and blue, spilling out into the hallway, a small pale beam that turns a narrow strip of the corridor carpet into a spring afternoon.

You open Xander's door with your heart in your mouth. 

What you find unfolding before you, though, seats your heart back in your chest- and pumping hot, rich pulsebeats thrumming straight to your groin.

Xander Harris is reclining on his couch. Lying lengthwise along it, supine, arms and legs akimbo, he is totally, unashamedly naked.

(You've seen men nude before, of course. Nude, bare, unclothed, stripped. Xander is *naked*, in the most erotic sense of the word, a Michelangelo wet dream made flesh).

Sweat gleams on the bronzed arcs and alabaster plains of his magnificent body, the blue glow

(which turns out to be flickering whitenoise from a widescreen TV)

lending an almost bioluminescent quality to his skin, as though he were some rare and fantastic creature brought up from the ocean floor to be marveled at and worshiped.

The two equally naked men astride him certainly treat him with reverence.

Between the long, thickly haired sprawl of Xander's legs, the first man is busy, his massively muscled back to you. Though you can't see his face

(hidden as it is in the thick Rorschart whorls at Xan's crotch)

you *recognize* this man, the fog that still enshrouds your mind pierced with lighthouse intensity by the odd tattoo on the man's left shoulder.

though the elegant copperplate script and strange chimera-design

//what is that thing? some kind of bird?//

are hard to make out, as the sweat sheening the man's skin obscures some of the detail, the tattoo still screams out at you that you know him.

When he lifts his great head from Xander's groin, giving the boy's cut, purpled cock a loving lathe before claiming Xander's mouth with his own, you see the man's face at last; you are not at all surprised to see ochre irises with cat-slit pupils, brutally sharp cheek and brow ridges. 

Xander, for his part, doesn't seem to mind. He just guides the tattooed vampire's angular face to his chest, closes his eyes and moans.

The second man fucking to Xander is not quite as massive- almost, but not quite. Short hair cut in a military-style buzzcut tickles Xander's calves as he kisses and sucks on each of Xander's abs in turn.

Xander burbles laughter, and buzzcut guy and tattoo vamp look and each other, exchanging dimpled grins,before getting back to business.

Your breath catches in your throat at the buzzcut guy's facial beauty, at stunning eyes the colour of a glacial pool in Summer.

You wring your brain, but you can't place this man. You don't think you know him. 

But you'd like to.

"...He is majorly feckin' gorgeous, isn't he? I'm gonna hafta agree wid yer dere. His name's Graham, by tha way. Graham Miller. And yer roight- yer don't know him."

You spin, shocked.

Standing beside you, a warm grin on his pleasant face, is a slight, handsome man in his apparent mid twenties. His teal eyes twinkle mischievously, a brown leather jacket hangs off the lean muscle of his body, and the collar of the ratty dress shirt beneath the jacket is doing little to stem the advance of a truly prodigious growth of chest hair beneath.

In short, this is a man you would feel flattered to be approached by under normal circumstances.

If only he weren't transparent.

Still smiling, Doyle

//wait a minute- how do I know his name?//

winks at you and then turns back to watching the three men on the couch.

"Xan met Graham during tha Scoobies' introduction ta college loife, y'see. Dey hit it off, an' tha pair a' dem have been goin' out for nearly two years now... An of course, Xan's had a thing fer Ainge fer *years*. Even before Oi fell fer tha Big Undead Lug..."

//Ainge... Angel, yes! The name fits the large vampire perfectly- you remember meeting him a couple of tim- *WHAT*?! College?!! Wait a minute... I last new Xan in...//

Doyle nods at you, his smile waning slightly. "...High School, yes. You've been dead a long time, kid."

His greenish blue eyes fix on yours.

"But den...you already knew dat."

He's right of course. 

Despite all your rationalizations, your excuses, you knew you couldn't possibly still be alive. Passing by the old High School (only it wasn't "old" to you) on your way to Xander's place, you'd been shocked to see its smoking, broken hulk. The last time you'd seen it the building had been intact, that huge thing wrapping around it and rearing... Well, what's done is done.

Hell, you'd known right from the start of this little adventure, when you'd come back to consciousness standing on top of a grave.

*Your own* grave. 

Doyle is nodding again. "Don't worry dat pretty head a yers. Bein' dead ain't so bad. Yer just hafta get used ter it, is all."

Finallt, you find your voice.

"But... why now? Doyle? If I've been... gone-"

(The "D" word still won't come to your tongue)

"-for so long, what brought me back?"

Doyle has turned away from you and is watching the trio making love again. His face pops into a comical double take as Xander, still enthusiastically kissing Angel, simultaenously grabs Graham around his middle and puts...

"*Whoa*! Way ter go, Xan! Oi didn't know humans could bend dat way! Spontaneous healin' or no, Ainge is gonna be sore tommorrow..."

The lithe Irishman turns back to you. "Why are ya back? Well, I could spin ya all sorts of shite about how Tha Powers want yer to keep foightin' fer tha good, even after death, brewhaha like dat, and it's true... But you know why. Yer came back fer Xan the same way I came back fer Ainge. You wanted to know he was okay, that he was happy."

The smile broadens. "An' judgin' by the matchin grins on all three a' their mugs, they're pretty feckin' happy alright..."

Doyle reaches for you, his insubstantial hand

-the floor is visible through his palm-

surprisingly strong as it grips your own. Surprised at his strength, you are not particularly surprised to see your own hand become similarly transparent at his touch.

Your eyes widen as the entire life of Allen Francis Doyle flashes through your brain, as though someone had just downloaded his mind into your own. Doyle's muscles are tensed, and you know without asking that he is experiencing a similar lightning fast review of your own existence.

The images draw to a close. You have to close your eyes at the final few frames, which prominently feature a harsh white light, so bright that it actually *sears*...

Doyle is wearing a weary expression. "Yeah, that was a baddun, alright. Still, I did it ter save Ainge. Fer an immortal, the guy's got no self-preservatory instincts at all... But Oi saved him. Oi'd do it again in a heartbeat."

Your grip on Doyle's hand tightens into a comforting squeeze, and he rewards you with a sweet smile.

"So, we both laid down our lives fer loved ones, hey? And dey say romance is dead!"

You open your mouth to contradict Doyle, to say that his heroic death was much more noble than yours, that you didn't set out to die for Xan. But then you close your mouth again. You suppose you *did* die for him, really. When he asked for your help, you said yes without hesitation. You were on the front-line of battle, and if you hadn't been there, Xan would have been, and would have died in your place.

You don't regret dying, either.

You look up at Doyle. "What now? What do we do?"

The Irish demon considers a moment. "Well, dere's no law sayin' dat only tha Princess gets ter have a ghost fer a roomie; Whaddya say we hang around these three fer a while, do the Guardian Angel bit?

You smile. "It's a date".

* * * *

Xander is moments away from sleep, when something catches his eye by the window. He lifts his head up from its pillow on Angel's cum-spattered stomach.

The faintest light at the edges of the thick drapes reveal that it's daybreak, so the vampire will be ...dead to the world.. for a few hours yet. Graham however, has heard the mortal of his two lovers stirring and now moves up Xander's body, placing a kiss on plush lips, before peering into chocolate depths.

"You okay, X?"

Xander smiles up at his commando. "More than, soldier. It's just... I thought I saw... just a glimpse..."

Xander shakes his head. "Nevermind. It's nothing. It's just because... well, next week's the anniversary of... You know."

Graham finishes the thought. "...Graduation."

"Yeah".

Holding Xan tighter to him, his other hand absently stroking Angel's hair, Graham Miller wishes once again that the Initiative had posted him here earlier, that he could have helped- could have done something to spare Xander and Angel the pain of The Ascension. Both of them still had nightmares about it, occasionally

(Well, Daymares, in Angel's case)

but all Graham could do was be there for them, comfort hem, help them forget.

He hoped that was enough.

Graham looks at Xan. "You still think about him?"

Xander has snapped out of the mood, but his smile is still slightly sad. "Yeah... We never did anything, y'know, but he was nice. A good friend. We would have been more, but... well, I was in denial back then."

Graham cocks an incredulous eyebrow towards Angel. "Aw, Xan- You were around Angel 24-7 too! How could you deny *that*?!"

Xander grins. "I was a very slow learner. I have the report cards to prove it."

They both laugh, and settle down together, pressed along their length.

Xan smiles, wistful. "I just hope that he's happy somewhere, y'know? That he's happy I'm happy. That I've found you guys. That we're all good."

Graham holds him close. "He knows, Xan. He knows."

"'Night Gray. Love you."

"'Night. Back at ya."

Graham rocks Xander gently, until his boyfriend is asleep. Just before Graham himself nods off, he looks to the window and says a quiet thank-you to the man who gave his life for Xander. For Angel. Who made sure the two men who Graham loved would be here, waiting for him to find.

"Goodnight, Larry".

\------------------------end----------------------------

**Author's Note:**

> The Jesus Lizard, aka the Basilisk, is a South American lizard that can run straight across the surface of a lake or pond, without breaking the surface tension, when frightened. I thought it an appropriate title considering all the reptiles and resurrections in the fic :D
> 
> Going through a BUFFY rewatch. This one came about due to my continued affection for Larry- the only character who ever really *listens* to Xander- and who was unfairly flattened by the Mayor at the end of Season 3. Sure Joss, kill the only openly Gay character. It also came about due to Glenn Quinn, still missed.
> 
> There are quite a few horror/sci-fi movie in jokes in here too, if you can spot them all.
> 
> Dedication: To Colton Haynes, as always. He knows why :D


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